Conversion Technologies
Big Government, Whoa!—Local Government, Go!
Just as we go to press, we find that the US Senate has caved in to the oil lobby and excised from the House version of the Energy Bill the tax package that included a long-term extension of the investment tax credit and short-term extension of the production tax credit, effectively eviscerating the only sensible portion of what is being hailed as “the proudest moment of this Congress.” But luckily this is not the end of the story. Instead, despite the good-old-boys-club activities of our Washington folks, other interests—local and closer both to the needs and the mood of their constituents—are heading in a different direction.
A Bright Stewardship
In October 2007, Los Angeles County—with 28 large material recovery facilities/transfer stations, 11 municipal solid waste landfills, 11 inert waste landfills, two waste-to-energy facilities, 43 construction-and-demolition recycling facilities, and 350 recyclers handling roughly 24 million tons per year of materials—released its Conversion Technology Evaluation Report; Phase II (www.socalconversion.org) whose introduction states:
In addition to the production of locally generated renewable energy and green fuels, the use of conversion technologies in southern California could effectively enhance recycling and beneficial use of waste, reduce such pollution as greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce dependence on landfilling and imported and domestic fossil fuels.
Currently, LA County diverts 50% of its waste-stream through traditional means, but as laudable as this effort is, nearly 40,000 tons per day remain for disposal, of which 20% must be exported to landfills outside the county. With anticipated population growth, scheduled landfill closures, and the near certainty that no new landfills will be permitted in any foreseeable future, waste export with all of its environmental and fiscal drawbacks could lead to a waste management crisis if allowed to continue unabated. The issue as the county sees it is rooted not in the “save the planet” rhetoric used to sell everything from deodorant to skyscrapers, but in the sober recognition that the county’s vast megalopolitan complex faces a challenge whose solution requires the adoption of new tactics and technologies geared both to environmental and societal needs.
Thus the report recommends that “... upon approval by the Board of Supervisors, the Task Force, Subcommittee and Department of Public Works establish a competition to solicit formal, site-specific offers for selection of one or more conversion technology demonstration projects for county support. Upon selection of a project(s) and negotiation of associated support activities to be provided by the county, the project would proceed to permitting, design and construction, and startup. The goal is to implement a project with expedited permitting by December 2011.”
Separately, but motivated by similar concerns, the City of Los Angeles established the need to pursue its own alternative technologies program to reduce reliance on landfills in its 2004 Renew LA report. Through its objective—“to identify clean, environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, socially acceptable, and economical means of dealing with waste”—the study determined “... that technologies do exist to process solid waste into a renewable energy sources and are commonly used in other countries.”
In 2006, the city hired consultants to refine the technology selection process and screen potential development partners, following which the Board of Supervisors released a request for proposals in February 2007 to select a technology-and-development partner to site and construct an alternative technology facility capable of processing 200–1,000 tons per day by 2010.
Energy From Waste: A Long, Long Trail A-winding
Longtime MSW Management readers will recall our ongoing efforts to promote CTs, a trail that began with an Editor’s Comments in 1996 suggesting the replacement of the fuel additive MBTE with waste-derived ethanol. The continued effort was highlighted by the magazine’s co-sponsorship (along with the Wendy P. McCaw Foundation) of a Conversion Technology Colloquy convened in Santa Barbara in December 1999 to explore certain fundamental questions relating to sustainable materials management in the 21st century and the potential role of new CTs in processing portions of the solid wastestream into renewable and environmentally benign fuels, chemicals, and sources of clean energy. Of particular concern was how government policies and functions may need to change to anticipate, catalyze, and respond to these future developments while ensuring and enhancing environmental protection, resource conversion and recovery, economic development, and other related public policy goals.
Slightly more than a year later, the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) continued the effort with its May 2001 Conversion Technology Conference, directing action in five key areas: (1) interagency coordination, (2) follow-up workshops/symposia, (3) leveraging federal and state monies, (4) legislative proposal for small-scale grants and life cycle research, and (5) assist applicants in permit process.
In the wake of the conference, the CIWMB developed a strategic plan on the basis of the growing belief that CTs could be a major step towards zero waste by “… harnessing the energy potential in ‘waste’ by using new and clean technology to convert the material directly into green fuel or gas to produce electricity.”
A CIWMB-commissioned study by the University of California at Riverside College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology, whose summary report, Evaluation of Environmental Impacts of Thermochemical Conversion Technologies Using Municipal Solid Waste Feedstocks, found CTs to be a superior waste diversion approach. The report, published by MSW Management in its Elements 2007 issue (www.mswmanagement.com/mw_0606_toc.html) was subsequently withdrawn by the CIWMB at the behest of influential members of the California Legislature.
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At issue was (and is) whether CTs should be accorded the same diversion credits under California’s AB-939 50% diversion mandate as currently enjoyed by recycling and composting practices. Opponents voice the concern that CTs will be at the expense of existing recycling programs, ignoring the stated goal of all recognized CT schemes to deal only with post-sorted organic materials—those otherwise beyond the reach of recycling efforts and bound for the landfill. The assumption has been that without equal diversion credit, CTs would not be in line to receive adequate financing to become economically viable.
But things are changing. Better still, some of our elected officials—particularly those closest to reality—are “getting it,” and to them we would like to offer our congratulations and support.
Author's Bio: John Trotti is the Editor of MSW Management magazine.
January-February 2008
Conversion Technologies
Big Government, Whoa!—Local Government, Go!
Just as we go to press, we find that the US Senate has caved in to the oil lobby and excised from the House version of the Energy Bill the tax package that included a long-term extension of the investment tax credit and short-term extension of the production tax credit, effectively eviscerating the only sensible portion of what is being hailed as “the proudest moment of this Congress.” But luckily this is not the end of the story. Instead, despite the good-old-boys-club activities of our Washington folks, other interests—local and closer both to the needs and the mood of their constituents—are heading in a different direction.
A Bright Stewardship
In October 2007, Los Angeles County—with 28 large material recovery facilities/transfer stations, 11 municipal solid waste landfills, 11 inert waste landfills, two waste-to-energy facilities, 43 construction-and-demolition recycling facilities, and 350 recyclers handling roughly 24 million tons per year of materials—released its Conversion Technology Evaluation Report; Phase II (www.socalconversion.org) whose introduction states:
In addition to the production of locally generated renewable energy and green fuels, the use of conversion technologies in southern California could effectively enhance recycling and beneficial use of waste, reduce such pollution as greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce dependence on landfilling and imported and domestic fossil fuels.
Currently, LA County diverts 50% of its waste-stream through traditional means, but as laudable as this effort is, nearly 40,000 tons per day remain for disposal, of which 20% must be exported to landfills outside the county. With anticipated population growth, scheduled landfill closures, and the near certainty that no new landfills will be permitted in any foreseeable future, waste export with all of its environmental and fiscal drawbacks could lead to a waste management crisis if allowed to continue unabated. The issue as the county sees it is rooted not in the “save the planet” rhetoric used to sell everything from deodorant to skyscrapers, but in the sober recognition that the county’s vast megalopolitan complex faces a challenge whose solution requires the adoption of new tactics and technologies geared both to environmental and societal needs.
Thus the report recommends that “... upon approval by the Board of Supervisors, the Task Force, Subcommittee and Department of Public Works establish a competition to solicit formal, site-specific offers for selection of one or more conversion technology demonstration projects for county support. Upon selection of a project(s) and negotiation of associated support activities to be provided by the county, the project would proceed to permitting, design and construction, and startup. The goal is to implement a project with expedited permitting by December 2011.”
Separately, but motivated by similar concerns, the City of Los Angeles established the need to pursue its own alternative technologies program to reduce reliance on landfills in its 2004 Renew LA report. Through its objective—“to identify clean, environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, socially acceptable, and economical means of dealing with waste”—the study determined “... that technologies do exist to process solid waste into a renewable energy sources and are commonly used in other countries.”
In 2006, the city hired consultants to refine the technology selection process and screen potential development partners, following which the Board of Supervisors released a request for proposals in February 2007 to select a technology-and-development partner to site and construct an alternative technology facility capable of processing 200–1,000 tons per day by 2010.
Energy From Waste: A Long, Long Trail A-winding
Longtime MSW Management readers will recall our ongoing efforts to promote CTs, a trail that began with an Editor’s Comments in 1996 suggesting the replacement of the fuel additive MBTE with waste-derived ethanol. The continued effort was highlighted by the magazine’s co-sponsorship (along with the Wendy P. McCaw Foundation) of a Conversion Technology Colloquy convened in Santa Barbara in December 1999 to explore certain fundamental questions relating to sustainable materials management in the 21st century and the potential role of new CTs in processing portions of the solid wastestream into renewable and environmentally benign fuels, chemicals, and sources of clean energy. Of particular concern was how government policies and functions may need to change to anticipate, catalyze, and respond to these future developments while ensuring and enhancing environmental protection, resource conversion and recovery, economic development, and other related public policy goals.
Slightly more than a year later, the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) continued the effort with its May 2001 Conversion Technology Conference, directing action in five key areas: (1) interagency coordination, (2) follow-up workshops/symposia, (3) leveraging federal and state monies, (4) legislative proposal for small-scale grants and life cycle research, and (5) assist applicants in permit process.
In the wake of the conference, the CIWMB developed a strategic plan on the basis of the growing belief that CTs could be a major step towards zero waste by “… harnessing the energy potential in ‘waste’ by using new and clean technology to convert the material directly into green fuel or gas to produce electricity.”
A CIWMB-commissioned study by the University of California at Riverside College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology, whose summary report, Evaluation of Environmental Impacts of Thermochemical Conversion Technologies Using Municipal Solid Waste Feedstocks, found CTs to be a superior waste diversion approach. The report, published by MSW Management in its Elements 2007 issue (www.mswmanagement.com/mw_0606_toc.html) was subsequently withdrawn by the CIWMB at the behest of influential members of the California Legislature.
At issue was (and is) whether CTs should be accorded the same diversion credits under California’s AB-939 50% diversion mandate as currently enjoyed by recycling and composting practices. Opponents voice the concern that CTs will be at the expense of existing recycling programs, ignoring the stated goal of all recognized CT schemes to deal only with post-sorted organic materials—those otherwise beyond the reach of recycling efforts and bound for the landfill. The assumption has been that without equal diversion credit, CTs would not be in line to receive adequate financing to become economically viable.
But things are changing. Better still, some of our elected officials—particularly those closest to reality—are “getting it,” and to them we would like to offer our congratulations and support.